Handling a Phobia

You could have a phobia for anything under the sun. Is such a phobia simply a fancy name for a fear or much more than that? The medguru.com explores…

As per the findings of a study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health, (NIMH), between 8.7 percent and 18.1 percent of Americans suffer from phobias. Further, women are more prone to developing a phobia than men.

While you might have heard of people being scared of heights, closed places, strangers etc, there are people who have fear for pickles, getting married or even the females. It may sound interestingly funny, but for those who have been living with it since ages and have accepted it as an inevitable part of their lives, it may not be so.

What is a Phobia?
Phobia, also known as morbid fear, is being extremely and persistently scared of a particular situation, activity, thing, or people. A phobia is quite different from experiencing a regular fear or stress because the fear is extreme. It may be normal for people to suffer from stage fright, but if such a fear takes the form of a phobia, the person would probably faint upon being made to stand on the stage.

Having to deal with a phobia would mean that you would start being stressed the moment you are placed in the situation, near the object / person or are doing the activity that scares you. People with phobias tend to avoid the object, situation, person or the activity that scares them, so that they are not worried or stressed out.

Types of Phobia
Phobias can be categorized into five different types:

1. Natural environment phobias, such as being afraid of tornados or lightning
2. Animal phobias, such as being afraid of spiders or dogs
3. Blood-injection-injury phobias, such as being afraid of blood or getting a shot
4. Situational phobias, such as being afraid of elevators or bridges
5. Other phobias, such as being afraid of choking or throwing up

What causes Phobias?
What exactly causes a phobia is still widely unknown but, the most broadly accepted cause of a phobia is a combination of external events and an inner predispositions. It is also certain that phobias do have a lot to do with genetics; hence, if it runs in your family, you are more likely to have a phobia too.

Often people develop a phobia because they
• Have had a bad experience, such as being attacked by a bull;
• Experienced a panic attack in a specific situation, such as while traveling on a particular road;
• Saw something bad happen to someone else, such as seeing a person being bitten by a snake;
• Saw someone else who was very scared of something, such as diving into the swimming pool from a height;
• Learned about something bad happening, such as a car accident.

Phobias usually begin when one is very young, generally in one’s childhood or adolescence. This is largely because children are more prone to be scared. They are also unable to rationalize the fact that the amount of fear they experience is more than the danger of hurting themselves. However, situational phobias, can also occur when a person has attained adulthood.

Body’s response to a Phobia
Amygdala is that part of our brain, which is responsible for secreting a hormone which is responsible for controlling fear and aggression. When such a response is initiated, the amygdala secretes the hormone responsible for putting the body into a defensive state of ‘alert’, which means that you are now ready to run, fight or move depending upon what the situation demands. Phobias are hence, related to amygdala.

Symptoms of Phobia
To say that you have a phobia is to confirm the prevalence of most of the following symptoms:

• The amount of fear you experience of a particular object, situation or activity is much more than that experienced by most others.
• Even being near the object or situation can get you tremendously stressed.
• You do understand that the amount of fear that you have is unreasonable. This might not be so in case of children.
• You make all possible attempts to avoid the situation, object or activity that you are scared of.
• The level of your stress or fear is so high that it has rendered even routine activities, like going shopping, impossible.
• If you are less than 18 years of age, these symptoms have been prevailing since at least, a duration of 6 months.
• What you are experiencing are not the symptoms of any other problem such as a panic disorder.

Treatments
Some people decide to go without any treatment. It is however, advisable that you consult a psychotherapist if you suffer from a phobia.

Often a therapist suggests multiple treatments. One of them is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims at putting the person at ease by exposing him to the real or imaginary object, situation or activity that he has a phobia for.

For example, if you have a phobia for birds, you might first be asked to imagine yourself surrounded with birds, followed by exercises to ease your stress or worry. Later you might actually be taken to a place with birds around and asked to do the relaxing exercises. Over a time, you might learn that the fear of danger is all within and does not really exist.

Anti-depressiondefine medicines in conjunction with the psychopathic treatments can also be prescribed. Another therapy effective in getting rid of the associations that trigger a phobic reaction is a combination of Hypnotism and Neuro-linguistic programming.